Colors and Patterns

I'm under the lazy bed weather mood right now. It's been raining since yesterday evening and the whistling strong winds kept me up for most of the night. I woke up an hour ago (it's noon now), with a heavy head. I feel like doing nothing other than enjoy the warmth of bed. But of course, it's Sunday...and I've been excited to share the stamp I scanned last weekend for the theme: ethnic or national costumes.

I am interpreting this widely and including folk and traditional costumes.

To cap off the feature on Dutch costumes on my blog this week, here's a stamp from the Grenzeloos Nederland series 2010. Grenzeloos means 'boundless' and the series' theme is beyond borders - ancient ties of the Netherlands. For the August 2010 issue, the series featured the Netherlands influence on its former colony, Suriname.

This second stamp from the 2010 issue shows parallels between the Afro-Surinamese kotomisse and the Dutch women's costume. Uncle Wiki said that the koto was a functional dress. It's purpose was to protect the slave woman against their master's sexual interest. The stamp designer Ariënne Boelens said that the dress made the Creole women unattractive, similar to the Dutch women's style that is pious and veiled.

With my Friday post including a postcard of Finnish traditional costume along with the Dutch, I'm adding more colors and patterns on this feature. We're moving east from the Netherlands, to Belarus and Ukraine.

Issued on 18 August 2005, this stamp shows the Belarusian national costume for the Lepel region. The designer was Vladimir Savich. Characteristic of this costume is the white and red embroidery.

On these stamps, issued on 10 December 2004, we have Ukranian folk costumes. On the left is from a wedding in The Land of Ivano-Frankivsk, on the right is the exaltation of the cross from the Land of Lviv. 

For more stamps with traditional/folk/ethnic costumes, check out Viridian's blog roll at Sunday Stamps.

~maria